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>A Friday Threefer: Poetry, Random 10 and Cat Blogging!

>Friday Poetry BloggingI wans’t planning on doing the song-lyric-as-poetry thing, even though poetry and song are fraternal twins, at the very least, but on my drive to Cowtown, the following Neko Case song came up on shuffle and I realized how, with a few changes, it suited Rust Belt. So I’m adopting it as the unofficial theme song of this blog. Plus, it reads well even without the music, since her lyrics tend to scan pretty regularly (very little clipping of syllables or holding them over multiple notes) and it’s not stupidly repetitive in print. I particularly like the way the fourth line of the first stanza actually slows down as she sings “Ta-co-ma” over longer notes than the rest of the verse (which continues throughout).

Without further ado: Neko Case’s “Thrice All American”

I want to tell you about my hometownIt’s a dusty old jewel in the South Puget SoundWell the factories churn and the timbers all cut downAnd life goes by slow in Tacoma

People they laugh when they hear you’re from my townThey say it’s a sour and used up all placeI defended its honor, shrugged off the put downsYou know that you’re poor, from Tacoma

Buildings are empty like ghettos or ghost-townsIt gives me a chill to think what was insideI can’t seem to fathom the dark of my historyI invented my own in Tacoma

There was nothing to put me in love with the good lifeI’m in league with the the gangs guns, and the crimeThere was no hollow promise that life would reward youThere was nowhere to hide in Tacoma

People who built it they loved it like I doThere was hope in the trainyard of something inspiredOnce was I on it, but it’s been painted shutI found passion for life in Tacoma

Well I don’t make it home much, I sadly neglect youBut that’s how you like it away from the worldGod bless California, make way for the Wal-MartI hope they don’t find you Tacoma

Friday Random 10: Still unpackingMore music! The following ten songs came up during my bouts of book unpacking yesterday. (The bookshelves are done! Photos soon!)

“Free Again” — Alex Chilton

“All I Do is Dream of You” — Debbie Reynolds (from Singin’ in the Rain — shut up! That movie is one of my all time favorites!)

“Climbing to the Moon” — Eels

“Waitress in the Sky” — The Replacements

“Race for the Prize” — The Flaming Lips

“Girl in my Dreams” — The Screaming Tribesmen (Bet ya never heard of them — they’re an Australian band from the early ’90s. They looked like a hair metal band, but they were more alternative pop. How I ended up with their CD is a bit complicated, but it’s still worth listening to, so I ripped it.)

>Oh that one always bugged me because I lived in Oly from 89-97 and was a little scenster of sorts there. So of course we all hated Courtney Love. She was a poseur, you know. And we all knew that she had never ‘went to school’ in Olympia.It all came back when a friend of mine put together an all-Hole cover band. Hilarious!

>I love that song.And the secret Mutant powers of Callie fill me with admiration! But I hope Mouse doesn’t take any cues from her: I’d be likely to have a coronary for real if I thought he’d gone on the lam again.